Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust Company -- BSA/AML CMPs

On February 25, 2016, FinCEN and the OCC announced coordinated enforcement actions against Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust Company, Coral Gables, Florida, for willful anti-money laundering compliance violations. According to press releases from the agencies, Gibraltar was warned of its BSA/AML deficiencies in 2010, but its compliance failures continued until the OCC placed the bank under a Consent Order in 2014. FinCEN reported that "Gibraltar’s substantial AML program deficiencies led to its failure to monitor and detect suspicious activity despite red flags. These deficiencies ultimately caused Gibraltar to fail to timely file at least 120 suspicious activity reports (SARs) involving nearly $558 million in transactions occurring during 2009 to 2013. These deficiencies also unreasonably delayed Gibraltar’s SAR reporting regarding accounts related to a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme led by Florida attorney Scott Rothstein. Timely filed SARs play an important role in law enforcement’s detection of criminal activity. Mr. Rothstein was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.... 'We may never know how that scheme might have been disrupted had Gibraltar more rigorously complied with its obligations under the law. This bank’s failure to implement and maintain an effective AML program exposed its customers, its banking peers, and our financial system to significant abuse,' said FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery."

Gibraltar’s transaction monitoring system contained incomplete and inaccurate account opening information and customer risk profiles, which hindered its compliance staff from adequately spotting unusual account activity. Gibraltar also failed to sufficiently address an automated monitoring system that generated an unmanageable number of alerts, including large numbers of false positives, which caused significant delays in Gibraltar’s review. Gibraltar also failed to properly train its compliance staff, and failed to develop and implement an adequate customer identification program.

The OCC imposed a $2.5 million civil money penalty on the bank. FinCEN imposed a penalty of $4 million, of which $2.5 million will be satisfied by the bank's payment of the OCC's penalty.

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